


One Beating Heart

by butterflyslinky



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Ghosts, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-10 00:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4370810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflyslinky/pseuds/butterflyslinky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thranduil knows Tauriel will fade for the loss of her One. But he is not lost, is he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Beating Heart

“She will fade soon.”

Thranduil nodded. He couldn’t lie, not to his son. Not to Legolas.

“I cannot go back.”

“I know.” 

Sending him away was a kindness. He wouldn’t have to watch her fade. He wouldn’t have to see another young soul die.

Legolas was gone, and Thranduil just needed to lead Tauriel home. It would be too cruel to leave her here.

She went back to Mirkwood willingly and did not say a word.

*

Thranduil gave her a room in the royal wing of the palace. She would not be there long, after all. He ordered the other elves not to disturb her, except for a servant who was tasked with taking her meals.

For the first few days, Thranduil was too focused on repairing what was left of his military to think about it too much. But then the servant came to his throne room.

“My Lord,” she said. “Lady Tauriel…”

“Has she faded?” Thranduil asked, struggling to keep the grief from his voice.

“No,” the servant said. “If anything, she seems…happy.”

Thranduil frowned. “Happy?”

The servant nodded. “These past three days, I’ve taken her supper up, and found her laughing…I thought that it must be hysteria and did not wish to disturb her…but today, I heard her speaking, as though in conversation, though the room was empty.”

Thranduil sighed. “I shall speak to her,” he said. “It may be that she is lonely, and in need of company as she goes.”

*

He found her sitting by the fire, with a second chair drawn up beside her. She was silent just then. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright, and she looked more like a woman after her wedding night than a grieving maiden who had lost her love.

She looked up as he entered and smiled. “My Lord, we weren’t expecting you,” she said.

Thranduil raised his eyebrows. “Are you quite well, Tauriel?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “More than fine…I’ve been so happy since returning.”

He sighed. Of course she was in denial. “Tauriel, Kili’s gone. Your dwarf is dead.”

Tauriel’s brow furled. “But he’s right here.” She gestured at the empty chair. “With me.”

“He died, Tauriel,” Thranduil said. “On Raven Hill...it is a miracle you have not faded.”

“Why would I fade and leave my love behind?” She glanced at the space beside her and smiled. “It’s all right, love…he may still be injured from the battle.”

Thranduil looked at her sadly. “I will see that you aren’t disturbed further,” he said gently, and left the room.

*

The servant reported that Tauriel continued to smile and laugh and hold conversations with her invisible companion. Thranduil commanded that no one put a stop to it. Perhaps it was cruel, but if it was keeping her from fading, well, everyone dealt with grief differently.

Tauriel reappeared for dinner a month after returning. Her eyes were as bright as ever, and she blushed when Thranduil looked at her. He would have hoped that it meant she had snapped from her madness, except for one thing.

There was a bruise peeking out from under her collar.

“Tauriel, what is that?” Thranduil asked, trying to keep his voice even.

She blushed deeper and pulled her collar up. “Kili gets a bit…enthusiastic,” she mumbled. “He won’t be joining us…I asked, but he said you would not be happy to dine with a Durin.”

Thranduil spent the next week interrogating every elf in the kingdom, but all swore by the Valor that they had not disturbed Tauriel since the battle. Finally, he concluded that she must have bumped into something and done injury to herself by accident.

*

She left the palace a week later, saying that she and Kili were tired of staying indoors. Thranduil let her go. He would not keep her prisoner. Perhaps being in the open air would do her mind some good.

She returned, laughing, and chattering away at someone unseen. Nothing had changed. She still believed her lover beside her.

Thranduil was at war with himself. Should he let it continue, let Tauriel believe that Kili was with her, an imaginary friend to ease the grief? Or should he send for Gandalf, for Elrond, for anyone who might heal her addled mind, or take her into the West to sail away from it all?

But then she asked to return to work, and he had to make his choice.

“Tauriel,” he said firmly. “You are not well. You’ve gone mad from grief. You speak to a man who’s been dead this month and more. I cannot give you command while your mind is sick.”

She looked at him, angry. “You just disapprove because he’s a dwarf!” she snapped. “You don’t think he can be a good soldier of Mirkwood, so you punish us both!”

“Kili was a great fighter,” Thranduil said. “From what I saw. But I cannot have my forest guarded by nothing but memories.”

“He would serve you well,” she said. “As I will. Please…I cannot be idle.”

Thranduil sighed. Maybe, just maybe… “All right,” he said. “You may return to your post on the morrow. And you may give Kili a position in your ranks, if it will make you happy.”

She beamed at him and Thranduil could only shrug. What harm could it be?

*

If nothing else, being back on the guard meant that Tauriel was not Thranduil’s problem so often. True, the soldiers reported that she spent a lot of time talking to nothing but air, but she could still give commands and shoot a bow, so clearly her delusions weren’t bad enough to keep her from working.

In fact, the soldiers reported that when they did get into fights with the spiders or roving bands of orcs, Tauriel fought better than ever, seeming almost like two people, quicker with sword and bow than ever before.

But she only looked confused again when Thranduil praised her. “It isn’t my doing,” she said. “Kili is the best battle-partner I’ve ever had. I have nothing to fear when he’s beside me.”

“Of course,” Thranduil said. “Forgive me…and tell your dwarf that he’s doing well.”

What was the harm, in letting her believe for a little while?

*

Ten years was not a long time in the life of an elf, but it was long enough for everyone to agree that Tauriel was mad and Thranduil was madder for putting up with her.

Ten years of hearing about what Kili had said. Ten years of witnessing the captain defeat creatures alone that would normally take two elves. Ten years of half-hidden bruises in odd places that no one remembered coming from battles in the woods. Ten years of bright eyes and flushed cheeks and the girl talking to thin air.

It was a relief when Legolas finally returned home from his travelling, at least at first. But Thranduil could not let him be unprepared.

“I trust your journey was good?” Thranduil asked when Legolas came to his hall.

“Very good, Father,” Legolas said. He hesitated. “Some of the elves that greeted me told me…they said Tauriel still lives.”

“Yes,” Thranduil said. “She…found an alternative method of handling her grief.”

Legolas raised his eyebrows. “Some of the ones that told me of her seemed to think she wasn’t well.”

“She is not,” Thranduil confirmed. “She…I believe the death of her love drove her mad. She behaves as though he is alive, and beside her always.” He looked at his son, eyes sad. “I thought that a warning would not go amiss.”

Legolas nodded. “Thank you, Ada,” he said.

*

Thranduil did not ask what happened when Legolas and Tauriel were reunited. All he knew was that Legolas’s eyes shown with pain the next evening, pain that cut through in Legolas’s voice.

“You must do something,” Legolas insisted. “She cannot go on believing that there is a dead dwarf beside her.”

“And what would you prefer?” Thranduil asked. “That I call on Lord Elrond, or Lady Galadriel, and have them remove the illness, leaving her with nothing? Would you prefer that she feel all the grief that she’s been avoiding at once? She is alive, and she is happy, and if that means I must pretend to see a ghost wherever she looks for one, that is a small enough price to pay.”

Legolas did not answer, but he did spend a lot of time brooding in his chambers and pointedly refused to rejoin Tauriel’s unit. She sighed and told the place where Kili was apparently standing that the prince was just jealous, that they didn’t need him.

Thranduil quickly assigned Legolas to a different unit, to patrol as far from Tauriel as possible.

*

The tension was unbearable, but the kingdom held together. And really, once Legolas grew accustomed to Tauriel’s delusions, it wasn’t so bad.

But Thranduil was still braced for when it fell apart. It would not last forever. It could not last forever. One day, she would have to face it, and if Thranduil kept putting it off, that was his fault, not hers.

That day came some sixty years after the battle.

Tauriel came into the throne room, her eyes red from crying. She was pale, and the light had gone out of her eyes.

“Tauriel?” Thranduil said, gently. Hesitantly.

“He’s gone,” she said.

Thranduil closed his eyes. There it was. The realization. The grief. He only hoped her fading would be quick, and easy. “When did you remember?” he asked.

She looked confused again. “Remember what?” she asked. “Kili left this morning…he said that he had to go meet Mr. Baggins, and that he’d be back…but I don’t know how I can wait that long. He’s been so good…so faithful all these years…”

“Tauriel,” Thranduil said. “He’s not coming back.”

She shook her head. “No, he is!” she insisted. “He swore that as long as my heart beats, he will return…he said that we share it, that it will pull him back. But oh, I don’t like to wait!”

It had gone on too long. It was his fault, but it was time to put a stop to it. “Tauriel,” Thranduil said. “He is dead. He has been dead for sixty years. You need to let him go.”

Tears poured down her cheeks. “He’s never left me,” she said. “Never left me alone, not since we met…he’s part of me…I know you can’t see him, but he is there…he said he couldn’t leave without me. We’re bound together. He cannot rest while I still live.”

Thranduil ran a hand over his face. “The time has come,” he said. “You must sail West…go to Valinor. Take him, and go to the Undying Lands. Perhaps there, you both can rest.”

She looked down, and nodded. “I will go as soon as he returns,” she said. “I’m sorry we’ve made you so unhappy.”

*

The boat sailed smoothly, only a breeze to push it along. Tauriel stood on the deck, looking over the sea, her eyes bright with wonder.

She felt a small hand on her wrist and she turned to smile at her dwarf, her love. “We are going,” she said. “We will not fade…my heart will not stop, not ever.”

Kili nodded. “I know,” he said. He glanced around at the other elves, who were all ignoring them. “Do you think they will be able to see when we get there?”

“Perhaps,” she answered. “But if not, well…I have grown used to it.” She bent and kissed her dwarf, satisfied that he would always stay.


End file.
